Game Developer Conference: The Prelude

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I’ll never forget my first GDC, back in 1995. Back then, it was known as “CGDC”, which stood for Computer Game Developer’s Conference. While console games were certainly popular, the personal computer was the platform for leading edge titles. The open nature of the platform, and relative lack of restrictions, caused game designers to flock to systems like the Macintosh, Commodore Amiga, and the Atari 600/800. By 1995, though, the PC was clearly the king of the gaming systems.

In 1995, DirectX 1.0 was just about to ship and Direct3D was positioned as mostly a software rasterizer (in fact, D3D didn’t ship with DirectX 1.0–that came later). There are several salient events I recall from that GDC:

Mike also dragged me to an upstairs hotel room, where we crashed the suite of a little-known company called Rendition. They were showing scenes from NASCAR Racing, the Papyrus racing sim, that were bilinearly filtered and running at 640×480. Those scenes were actually pre-rendered simulations, but looked (for the time) stunning.

Later, I was sitting in a lobby next to a large conference room, minding my own business. Danny Sanchez saw me and dragged me into the conference room, past some protesting marketing types. At that time, Danny worked for Orchid Labs. The meeting that was going on was the very first 3dfx Immersion conference.

Over the years, CGDC was sold to Miller-Freeman, became GDC and is now part of CMP Publications. Despite the increasing corporate influence, GDC is still one of the more quirky technology conferences, and the most fun I have every year.

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